1. Field of the Disclosure
The disclosure relates generally to media processing devices, and, more particularly, to printing devices for printing of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) labels.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printing devices, such as laser printers, are nowadays equipped with RFID technology to print RFID labels along with ordinary printing, such as paper printing. These printing devices cater to printing of physical media containing RFID labels, for example, stick-on labels, tickets, packing slips, shipping labels and price labels. RFID labels may include RFID tags placed on sheets of the RFID labels. The RFID labels including the RFID tags are fed into the printing devices for the printing purposes. These printing devices have capability of processing RFID tags placed on the RFID labels. Herein the term ‘processing’ of an RFID tag refers to actions, such as reading, writing and verifying the RFID tag on an RFID label.
Traditional printing device for printing of RFID labels, such as a Lexmark® T640rn RFID business printer employ mechanisms, such as combining RFID technology with laser printing technology. Further, as an advancement, printing device manufacturers have developed another mechanism for printing the RFID labels by adding RFID Ultra High Frequency (UHF) tray options to existing printers, such as Lexmark® T64x series laser printers. Both of the mechanisms support far field RFID tag communications. However, the orientations of the RFID tags on the RFID labels in Lexmark® T640rn printer are vertical only, and the orientations of the RFID tags on the RFID labels in printers having UHF tray options are horizontal. Printers with the RFID UHF options prove to be a customer friendly installable option, and their costs are also significantly less when compared to the traditional printing device for printing of the RFID labels. An RFID UHF option generally includes an input media tray capable of containing the RFID labels to be programmed, and an RFID hardware including a radio and an antenna.
As the existing mechanisms employed for the printing of the RFID tags restrict the placement of the RFID tags in either the horizontal field or the vertical field, it may be possible to support the placement of the RFID tags in both the horizontal and vertical fields upon using antenna designs such as circular patch antennas and two dipole antennas into the existing RFID UHF option. However, it may be very difficult to integrate such antenna designs into existing RFID UHF options due to space limitations. Further, customers having printers and RFID UHF options integrated with the printers may need to input the orientation of the RFID tags and may also need to switch antennas of the RFID UHF options appropriately in order to communicate to the RFID tags having different orientations. Also, the customers may use two RFID UHF options along with the existing printers if they want to read both the horizontal and vertical orientations of the RFID tags, which may be an expensive solution and also may not be customer-friendly in operation.
Based on the foregoing, there is a need for a printing device having a single antenna that may communicate to RFID tags of both orientations, i.e. the horizontal orientation and the vertical orientation. Further, this single antenna design should eliminate a requirement to buy an extra RFID UHF option along with the printing device to support both orientations of the RFID tags.